Things of the Dark
by Saiyura
Summary: Something in the dark that creeps, haunts, and lives with you but never shows. Sooner or later it does despise your more than exuberant attitudes. How do you think it breaks you? The turtles are slowly finding out their own worst nightmare. Can someone save them?
1. Michelangelo

The story is simple. It follows the turtles as each one meets a creature of the dark that plays on what they feel is their strongest points in life. Strength, love, ability in ones mind, or happiness. The creatures slowly tear your down until you are nothing. This will adapt more later on as the chapters get more advanced.

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><p>chapter one: Michelangelo's fate<p>

No distinction, no depth to the black that had developed around them. No pain, no blood, and not even was their death in this cavern of metal. It was as if, to some degree, their only hope had been sucked out and replaced with something that seemed to stand there slightly twitching. They didn't recognize it, didn't even see it until that moment, that night.

The youngest had been the first to feel it, but brushed it off swiftly as a glare from his brothers, his instincts clashing with his brain. A small down fall for him as it was to the others. A small fight that had been over rules because nothing could harm them in their home, not a thing standing in the dark that they had never noticed before... never heard screaming... never felt touch their skin with an ice chill... _'I want to be free, I want to go back, I don't want to be here any longer'._

The youngest, Michelangelo, had suffered first by the creatures. It just seemed, at first, a cold from the sewers had come and taken a disliking to the cold reptilian blood of his body. Michelangelo, stricken suddenly with a flu, had violently been thrown into bed his cough growing worse as his smile faded with each wrecking hacking that gripped his chest and though he still failed to see it Mikey could now catch small flickers as it walked around the room, swirling across the floor as if dancing. To him it had been beautiful until he had seen the eyes that had, at one time, turned to look at him.

They were shining empty sockets that seemed to hold the look that they saw with sight of a normal human. It would come near him when it seemed to feel that Michelangelo had indeed 'felt' its presence whispering, _'I hate it, I hate this... Every day, so happy, so cheerful. It drags what remains of my ragged tattered heart through the filth of humans... Let me leave, let me go... LET me be seen!'_ and it would vanish making the feverish one think it all a dream until it returned more furious than even a feral animal when those thoughts rushed his brain.

The time passed before Michelangelo had his health again, the thoughts of the thing quickly pushed to the back of his mind though at times the frozen touch of fingers grazing his shoulders, the soft nearly gibbering words that seemed to make no sense would pull at his brain from nowhere. Michelangelo had caught his families looks when he'd turn looking at the darkest spots in the lair as if there was someone or something trying to reach out to him and to them... It was strange but he allowed the feelings to pass through him before he vanquished them with a small smile before it grew as he started again with whatever he had paused for. To them, they thought it might have been something they just never realized that he had done but...

"Are you okay?" they had came into the room just as he said this to the pitch black kitchen, he had failed to turn on the lights. "You keep saying things... what are they?"

_ 'I'm doing this...'_ they couldn't hear the words but each of them walked over to the youngest seeming worried as he had turned slightly to look at them, his eyes once a vibrant blue now seeming to be faded but even though they seemed less than alive, less than turtle, they shone through the dark that what was not even normal for irises.

Their fear became real as they pulled their brother back into the light, a dark glance to the shadows made their scales shiver with a small speck of reality as they slowly pieced their brothers' unusual reactions together. There was something here living with them that seemed to have 'taken' a liking to the the youngest turtle, Michelangelo.

"Michelangelo?" the old eyes so understanding were hidden with grief as they glanced upon the youngest body tilted to look in the direction of the unlit areas where the candle flickered seeming to pull away from some entity. "My son, what is there that you see? Tell me so that I m-."

The smile, so thin, crept upon Michelangelo's face as he looked at the old wise rat, a smile that didn't even twitch any sort of life into his eyes. A short lived pull of muscles that was more like an unusual habitual twitch before it vanished and his eyes once more diverted to the shadows. It was nearly as if something had caused it to happen, causing him to do things which were highly distorted for such a rambunctious child.

_'I detest you, disgusting, vile trash!'_ Michelangelo smiled at the words to the creature, _'You turn my bones to slithering snakes, make my flaking flesh peel like a rash... death... I wish you death, so much blood, pain... stop smiling! STOP! SMILING!'_


	2. Raphael

The story is simple. It follows the turtles as each one meets a creature of the dark that plays on what they feel is their strongest points in life. Strength, love, ability in ones mind, or happiness. The creatures slowly tear your down until you are nothing. This will adapt more later on as the chapters get more advanced.

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><p>chapter two: Raphael's Fate<p>

The second oldest had always been surrounded by a fire like anger that melted away any patience he could ever grasp at. It had shone in the fights they had in the past, but it was at times quelled only by the looks of need on his brothers' faces. His hate, disgust, and anger had only grew the last few years, to the strongest, when the only eldest had up and left them. A betrayal if he had ever known one from stories, movies, and his own personal knowledge. It had shook him up so much that at the end of the first year, when no sight or sound, nor message and signal was heard his heart had turned from the normal aggression into something that literally sliced at his flesh. Wounds would sprout from how often he had went out, fights with the criminals of the city, to steam off to the world of trash and freaks that were called 'humans'.

It had been sudden, this one time with no provocation, that the eldest, Leonardo, had came out of the shower before he felt his throat being tightly forced closed by Raphael. The eldest shell slowly grinding against the wall as Leonardo's eyes looked into the untamed fury, anger that had no meaning. His hands had flown to his neck gripping the tight squeezing hand as he gasp, flailing before slowly he realized things were turning black in his vision. It had surprised him for a few second until the force had nearly vanished and he fell like a stone to the floor coughing before Leonardo's eyes shot skyward catching the hazy look that had gripped Raphael. The look slowly faded away leaving the confusion, the guilt, and the pure horror to shine clear out of any blocks that might have once existed in those golden orbs.

"I..." Raphael coughed out his voice raw from the deep unusual breathing that turned swiftly into a growl as the anger returned, directed not at the eldest who slowly pushed himself up watching each second as Raphael slowly stepped away his fist pounding against his own skull as he let out a scream, something so unheard of in the living, that lasted what seemed hours but was just a few seconds.

"Raphael?" He reached a hand out before the golden orbs looked at him, tears swimming but unable to reach the edges. "Raph?" again the eldest pushed softly.

_'I fear it.'_ Raphael's anger soothed instantly as his head tilted at an odd angle looking into the shadows of the bathroom that lay behind the unseen eldest. Raphael blinked several times as the fleeting whisper came again, _'I detest it, feeling like this, so bottled up... I detest having to listen. I want freedom, I want to go back, back to how it once was.'_ He felt the tears slowly slide down his face as it spoke again so quietly that he nearly stepped into the dark if it wasn't for the eldest grabbing his waist and holding him against his firm plastron screaming Raphael's name to what felt like a deaf person.

_'Tell me how to end this suffering that you desire to inflict upon me.'_

Raphael had felt fine after that for weeks, his attention mainly on keeping his baby brother from walking head first into some strange 'areas' of the dark patches littering the lair. It wasn't as if what his baby brother was becoming, less his self, that bothered him it was what suddenly his brother would say to him, 'Where would they take me, Raphie, if they knew...' The words had been said through a voice so thick with fear that it nearly closed just trying to speak two words into the sentence.

Though it happened again as if it seemed to have been provoked by his eldest brother. It was strange how Raphael watched the turtle yelling practically, it wasn't though his brain logically tried to state. He had walked over, the eyes of his younger brothers, Donatello and Michelangelo, had grown wide when he was upon the blue banded turtle, his arm locked tightly around the throat, his laughter so wild that even the insane would have turned crying out that this was something unreal... something to fear...

"STOP!" it was so mocking that the words actually made his mouth salivate. "Oh, just stop..." it was less than serious as Raphael giggled at the eldest brothers body stumbling forward his hand again trying to pry the arm from his throat. "Can't hear ya, Leo... Can't," he felt the world shift as the seeming fun turned into a feral rage. "Shut the fuck up! Stop it, stop stop stop!" he ranted over and over as they both toppled over hitting the floor.

Raphael moved pulling the eldest under him to his shell, his fist connected with the cheek forcing the eldest head right, "LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP MAKING ME FEEL LIKE SOME PIECE OF SHIT, LEO!" the anger quelled as the turtle leader coughed violently gagging as he took in air. "Stop... stop... stop!" he gripped his head lowering it to his leaders shoulder crying harder trying to turn the anger back into the lock. "Stop..." he whispered.

_'Stop it, I'm better than this, stop making me... I... I ... stop'_ that voice returned with a sting to his brain as he cried harder._ 'I can't make it stop... I can't turn it off... Stop mouthing off to me, stop degrading me... STOP IT!'_ it screamed making him look up as he swore he saw it. The figure crouched in the dark its hands over its head looking straight at him both its eyes sewn shut. Its lower jaw missing but it still spoke with a tongue slithering about in the empty space, _'Don't look at what I am! This is your fault, you bastard!'_

He didn't feel anything as the shadows around his eyes grew brighter, the feeling of being floating coating his brain. He giggled as his eyes rolled into his head and fully fell on top of Leo who still gasped out from the sudden shocking attack, "Raphael?" the eldest had only whispered out but it was enough for him to feel the regret of his actions.


End file.
